Can we learn more about Brian Eno as a producer by studying old interviews to see what he's like as a cook? And why does Nick Cave make us think about the words "Avril Lavigne's vagina" in new and interesting ways? These and other questions are addressed, if not answered, by the arrival of Loops, a joint venture between that most distinguished of independent British publishing houses Faber & Faber and that most distinguished of independent British record labels Domino. The idea is to create "a haven for adventurous long-form music writing of every sort", which would be a noble pursuit even if this first issue didn't feature a sprinkling of regular contributors to the Observer Music Monthly. Indeed, 25 of the 224 pages are taken up by extracts from Maggoty Lamb's regular blog postings for this magazine's website on the state of the British music press, including an entry that heralded Loops' arrival by questioning whether "a 'haven' is really the environment likely to bring the best out of people who - it might be argued - are already spoilt enough by virtue of having a job which enables them to get paid actual money to write about music they have been sent for free".

So far, so incestuous, but the good news is that, by and large, the title avoids such pitfalls, and for every treat for Mojo readers - such as a previously unpublished interview with Nick Drake by Nick Kent or even an extract from Nick Cave's imminent new novel - there's something to make them run to the hills singing Oasis. Thus David Shrigley's illustrations, an excellent interview with the DJs at Optimo in Glasgow and even Ten Storey Love Song author Richard Milward's appraisal of Spacemen 3, for which he has taken the band's dictum about "taking drugs to make music to take drugs to" entertainingly to heart.